“ad explorandum nova utilia et necessaria”: la raccolta e il ruolo delle nova a Bologna (secoli XIII e XIV)

The paper focuses on the relationship of the Bolognese government with information in the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries. By analysing a series of unedited documents preserved in the State Archive of Bologna, the article highlights how searching and obtaining nova – information, news, especially those of strategic and tactic value – both from inside and outside the city boarders, occupied a prominent role for government institutions. The paper is divided in three parts: the first describes the offices and strategies used in the period to gather useful information for authorities. The second lists some failed missions of information gathering, which provide us with interesting details due to their unsuccessful nature. The third focuses, instead, on the successful cases, trying to verify how the information obtained was incorporated to the decision-making process of city councils active in Bologna in the period.